Waiting in Darkness
by GEM8
Summary: Jed Bartlet only meant to scare his youngest daughter when he predicted her kidnapping.  No one expect to actually have to live through it.  Zoey's thoughts during her captivity. Spoilers from 25, 7AWF83429, and Dogs of War.  Please Read and Review.


Title: Waiting in Darkness

Author: GEM

Rating: T

Characters: Zoey

Genre: Angst

Summary: Zoey's thoughts during the time she was kidnapped.

Spoilers: 25, 7AWF83429, and Dogs of War.

A/N: This is my first West Wing Fic in a very long time. Italicized sections are dialogue taking directly from Mr. Willis of Ohio. Please read and review.

Zoey woke in a cold dark space. She was delirious and alone. Her arm was throbbing. She tried thinking back to earlier that night. She remembers walking into the club with Wes and the rest of her detail. She remembers meeting Jean- Paul and following him to a small room in the back of the club, then everything went dark.

Zoey's body began to shiver uncontrollably. She tried to move up against the far wall to stay out of the draft. She pulled her jacket tightly around her shoulders. She was alone. She was scared. There was nothing she could do but wait in the dark.

---

The sound of the door opening startled her. A man wearing a mask slid a tray on the floor and closed the door as quickly as it had been opened. Zoey was tired, every muscle in her body ached. She was sure that her shoulder was dislocated. She crawled over to the tray and reached for the water bottle with her tied hands. She wondered for a moment if it was safe to drink, before she twisted open the cap. The water didn't have an unusual odder and she was parched. She needed to stay alert and in order to do that she needed to eat and drink. She had to take the chance, so she tipped the bottle back as best she could and allowed the cold water to assault her dry throat. The feeling of the cool water was a welcomed distraction from her current situation

Zoey fell asleep after drinking the water that was left for her she hoped when she woke up that this nightmare would be over.

---

She woke in darkness for the third time. She had no idea how long she hand been here or even where here was, but a conversation she had with her father suddenly came flooding back. "_The Secret Service should worry about you getting shot."_

"_They are worried about me getting shot. I'm worried about me getting shot. But that is nothing compared to how terrified we are of you. You scare the hell out of the Secret Service Zoey, and you scare the hell out of me too. My getting killed would be bad enough, but that is not the nightmare scenario. The nightmare scenario, sweetheart, is YOU getting kidnapped. You go out to a bar or a party in some club, and you get up to go to the restroom, somebody comes up from behind, puts their hand across your mouth, and whisks you out the back door. You're so petrified; you don't even notice the bodies of two secret service agents lying on the ground with bullet holes in their heads. Then you're whisked away in a car. It's a big party with lots of noise, and lots of people coming and going. And It's a half hour before someone says, 'Hey where's Zoey?' Another 15__minutes before the first phone call another hour and a half before anyone even THINKS to shut down all the airports. Now we're off to the races. You're tied to a chair in a cargo shack, somewhere in the middle of Uganda. And I'm told that I have 72 hours to get Israel to free 460 terrorist prisoners. So I'm on the phone pleading with Benjamin and he's saying, 'I'm sorry Mr. President, but Israel simply does not negotiate with terrorists, period. It's the only way we can survive.' So now we've got a new problem, because this country no longer has a commander in chief, it has a father who's out of his mind because his little girl is in a shack somewhere in Uganda with a gun to her head. DO YOU GET IT!"_

"_Yes." _

Zoey opened her eyes as the tears followed. The nightmare scenario had happened. Her she was sitting in some sort of shack in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no recollection of how she got her. The only thing she could remember at this moment was the look of utter fear on her father's face when he had spoken to her about this very instance three years ago. He was right she was terrified and all she wanted was to go home. She never should have trusted Jean-Paul. She never should have let me get this close to her. He had been pushing her to try drugs; ecstasy and she had always said no but tonight he snuck some in her drink. She remembered that much and she didn't remember anything after that.

She heard banging and talking outside the door. The door opened a minute later and a light was shined in her face to obscure her view. Strong arms pulled her to her feet and she let out a yelp as a hot shooting pain ran through her shoulder. She was pushed out the door and against a nearby wall. Her jacket was taken off leaving only her tank tops.

She shook in fear and her knees began to give way. She slid down the wall. They yelled at her in a language she was sure, even in her weakened state was Arabic. One of her captors pulled her up while another took her picture. After the picture was taken the man griped her upper arm tightly, and pushed her back into the cold damp hole she had just come out of. They threw her to the floor with such force that she let out another yelp of pain as she plunged once again into darkness. She struggled to push herself upright against the wall, gritting her teeth against the pain. She cried she just wanted this to end. She wanted to be warm again. She wanted to hear her parent's voices again and she wanted the pain to go away.

---

She has been here for days or so it seems. They have given her bread and water but very little else. She's begun to have flashback to what happened at the club. She was now certain that Molly was dead. She cried herself to sleep last night thinking of her. She was also thinking about her father. He was right. She didn't notice Molly with the bullet in her head. It took her at least a day to begin to remember the events of that night. Even now she was uncertain of her recollections. Molly was either dead, fighting for her life, or alive. Zoey wasn't certain, but she thought Molly was dead.

---

The ordeal was becoming a blur. Every few hours the men in the adjacent room would stop arguing and open the door. A sliver of light would penetrate the room and the experience would blind her. They would approach her and knock her around in jest before shutting her away in the darkness.

She would curl up in the corner and pray that someone would find her. She also prayed for forgiveness. She never expected the worst-case scenario to become reality. Zoey thought about her family. This would be tearing them apart. She hoped they would find her soon.

A noise outside the darkness of her captivity brought her back to reality. She heard shouting, shot and then saw a flash and was deafened by a sudden bang. The secret service rushed into the darkness followed closely by the FBI. Zoey was in shock. An agent knelt down next to her a called over a paramedic. The darkness she had been waiting was replaced with light she was saved and going home.


End file.
